Jimmy Robert was born in Guadeloupe (FR) in 1975 and currently lives and works in Berlin. 

His multidisciplinary practice encompasses performance, photography, film, video and drawing, frequently collapsing distinctions between these mediums. Using photography as a starting point for his works on paper, Robert blurs the divisions between two and three dimensions, as well as image and object, frequently employing printed images of paper, tape and collage rather than the real thing. Robert often uses found photographs and images from art history that he subjects to tearing, collaging, and other physical manipulation before digitally scanning them and exhibiting printed versions.

These photographs often extend into the gallery space and interact with Robert’s sculptures, which similarly give the illusion of paper or wooden forms and play with notions of value and durability. His wooden constructions occasionally sport a skin of veneered wood, an elegant and fragile disguise. This interest in the body personified through materials and the reverse, as well as the breakdown between image and object, integrates Robert’s longtime work with performance with his larger practice.

Performance remains a central part of Robert’s work. He has choreographed performances within the context of the exhibition space or in relation to existing architectural structures; as well as re-staging, reframing or sampling historical performance from Yoko Ono, Yvonne Rainer, James Lee Byars and others.